Pinnacle Airlines President Phil Trenary addresses hundreds of employees, downtown supporters and officials during a celebration commemorating his company's move to its new headquarters at One Commerce Square on Oct. 8, 2010. File/The Commercial Appeal

March 15, 2011 - Pinnacle Airlines President and CEO Phil Trenary reflects on his 14 years with Pinnacle during an interview Tuesday afternoon about his decision to step down as head of the Memphis based airline. File photo/The Commercial Appeal

March 15, 2011 - Pinnacle Airlines President and CEO Phil Trenary reflects on his 14 years with Pinnacle during an interview Tuesday afternoon about his decision to step down as head of the Memphis based airline. File photo/The Commercial Appeal

March 15, 2011 - Pinnacle Airlines President and CEO Phil Trenary reflects on his 14 years with Pinnacle during an interview Tuesday afternoon about his decision to step down as head of the Memphis based airline. File photo/The Commercial Appeal

March 15, 2011 - Pinnacle Airlines President and CEO Phil Trenary reflects on his 14 years with Pinnacle during an interview Tuesday afternoon about his decision to step down as head of the Memphis based airline. File photo/The Commercial Appeal

October 27, 2015 - Phil Trenary (center), President and CEO, Greater Memphis Chamber, listens to David Porter, President and Founder, Consortium Memphis Music Town, as he leads a tour of the Consortium's Talent Development Complex at 119 S. Main St. Tuesday. "The future of this city lives in its young," David Porter said. "I'm so proud of the young people of this city." (Yalonda M. James/The Commercial Appeal) File photo/The Commercial Appeal

November 19, 2014 - Phil Trenary (left) and Carolyn Hardy were among those who spoke to the Shelby County Commission during an economic development session at a retreat held at the University of Memphis Fogelman Executive Center. (Mike Brown/The Commercial Appeal) File photo/The Commercial Appeal

October 27, 2015 - (From left to right) - Diane Rudner, Chairman of the Board of Trustees, Plough Foundation, David Porter, Founder and President, Consortium Memphis Music Town, Mike Bruns, Founder and former president of Comtrak, Phil Trenary, President and CEO, Greater Memphis Chamber, and George Monger, Vice President and Executive Director, Consortium Memphis Music Town, have a ribbon cutting ceremony during the opening of the Consortium's Talent Development Complex at 119 S. Main St. Tuesday. (Yalonda M. James/The Commercial Appeal) File photo/The Commercial Appeal

Memphis Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Phil Trenary (left) jokes with Ikea's Real Estate Manager Reed Lyons and Expansion Public Affairs Manager Joseph Roth (right) after a press conference in December 2014 in the Hall of Mayors to announce that a new Ikea store is planned for the Wolfchase area. File photo/The Commercial Appeal

Northwest Airlink president Phil Trenary deplanes the Spirit of Memphis in this 1998 file photo just prior to take-off Wednesday as his airline gets back up and running following Northwest Airlines strike. File photo/The Commercial Appeal

Chamber officials must now avoid lurching off course, stay tuned in to the several controversial civic issues the chamber has raised, and find an able successor for the popular chief executive officer.

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Phil Trenary was named president and CEO of the Memphis Chamber of Commerce in 2014. He was killed Sept. 27.(Photo: File photo/The Commercial Appeal)Buy Photo

As the local economy sagged in 2013, a small group of Memphians set out to turn the quiet chamber into a vital force in the city.

Five years later, many of those same Memphians regard the chamber as a new and ambitious leader under the late Trenary.

He was shot and killed a week ago Downtown in what appears to be an attempted street robbery in an upscale residential district on South Front Street.

Chamber officials must now avoid lurching off course, stay tuned in to the controversial civic issues the chamber has raised, and find an able successor for the popular chief executive officer.

How well the board of directors and staff tend the chamber in the interim until a successor is found, and how well the next CEO performs, will resonate across the region.

Given the prominence in Memphis of some of its wealthy members, the chamber has emerged since 2013 as a voice in civic affairs alongside the elected politicians, local government agencies, unions, philanthropies, neighborhood leaders, activists and ministers trying to steer Memphis and Shelby County.

Big voice

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Billionaire investor Steve Case, second from left, talk with Richard Smith, son of FedEx founder Fred Smith, before breakfast at The Kitchen during a Rise of the Rest bus tour stop at Shelby Farms Park on May 8, 2018. Case is the co-founder of AOL. The tour was part of a national effort to shine a spotlight on trends shaping today's U.S. economy.(Photo: Yalonda M. James/The Commercial Appeal)

At times the business group has been louder. Just this spring, FedEx executive Richard Smith used his position as the chamber’s voluntary chairman to urge the mayors of Memphis and Shelby County to reform the city-county economic development agency, the EDGE board.

Trenary, a seasoned airline executive prominent in civic circles, was a behind-the-scenes ally, quietly explaining why change was necessary. Now the chamber must find his successor.

“We have our opportunity in front of us to take what Phil helped build and make sure we take advantage of that,’’ said chamber board member Duncan Williams, head of the financial firm of the same name founded by his father.

Although the chamber beefed up its staff earlier this year with hires such as Eric Miller, brought in from Norfolk, Virginia, to recruit new industry, the group has never identified a No. 2 executive to succeed Trenary, who was deeply engaged in the chamber’s many initiatives.

“I would say in my mind he was the tip of the spear, but it was not that obvious to people on the outside. He was always one to give the team the credit,’’ said chamber board member Spence Wilson Jr.

So the absence of a “tip-of-the-spear” CEO deprives the organization at a key time. Besides the push for EDGE reform, chamber initiatives include a sharper effort to lobby state lawmakers in Nashville, efforts to boost minority-owned firms and a series of new economic goals. These are the chamber’s so-called moon missions, which call for training 30,000 industrial workers, improving early childhood education, boosting minority firms, aiding 1,000 new entrepreneurs and ridding neighborhoods of trash.

“This is the time to take a deep breath, regroup and figure out the next step,” said Wilson, a principal in the 4,000-employee Memphis conglomerate Kemmons Wilson Cos. “We must carry on. That’s got to happen.’’

Halo leader

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Phil Trenary's role as Pinnacle Airlines CEO allowed him to join Memphis Tomorrow, where he mixed with business heavyweights.(Photo: File/The Commercial Appeal)

It’s tempting for a community to put a halo on a popular leader. In Trenary’s case, this is doubly so. He befriended a remarkable number of Memphians. And the chamber's rise thrilled the scions behind its transformation.

“He just fit like a glove,” Wilson said. “We didn’t have a big transition period getting Phil on board.’’

Despite its resurgence, the chamber hasn't completely succeeded in revving up Memphis:

Economic growth totaled 0.4 percent in 2017. It is a similar level of slow growth over the years that led Smith to contend EDGE failed to attract enough new industry.

The initiative calling for 30,000 trained workers, known as the Greater Memphis Alliance for a Competitive Workforce, got off to a slow start as an independent agency. It's now lodged inside EDGE.

New business investment regionwide has surged — $13 billion since 2010, the bulk of it spent by existing companies on buildings and equipment in the city. But there's also the sense Memphians haven't coalesced to iron out the issues that kept the city off Amazon's list of U.S. cities considered capable of hosting its second headquarters.

While Memphians proclaim the city is on the edge of greatness, Ralph Moore, head of the Memphis Area Association of Governments, a regionwide coordinating agency, says regional ills hold back the city and the Memphis area on matters such as regional mass transit and economic development programs that extend outside Memphis and Shelby County. "An honest, gut-wrenching assessment of who we are is better than saying who we would like to be," Moore said.

Memphis Tomorrow

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Memphis first responders work the scene where a police chase lead to a series of accidents near the intersection of Mississippi Blvd and East McLemore Avenue on Friday, Sept. 28, 2018. Joe Rondone/The Commercial Appeal,

Memphis first responders work the scene where a police chase lead to a series of accidents near the intersection of Mississippi Blvd and East McLemore Avenue on Friday, Sept. 28, 2018. Joe Rondone/The Commercial Appeal,

Memphis first responders work the scene where a police chase lead to a series of accidents near the intersection of Mississippi Blvd and East McLemore Avenue on Friday, Sept. 28, 2018. Joe Rondone/The Commercial Appeal,

Memphis first responders work the scene where a police chase lead to a series of accidents near the intersection of Mississippi Blvd and East McLemore Avenue on Friday, Sept. 28, 2018. Joe Rondone/The Commercial Appeal,

Memphis first responders work the scene where a police chase lead to a series of accidents near the intersection of Mississippi Blvd and East McLemore Avenue on Friday, Sept. 28, 2018. Joe Rondone/The Commercial Appeal,

Memphis first responders work the scene where a police chase lead to a series of accidents near the intersection of Mississippi Blvd and East McLemore Avenue on Friday, Sept. 28, 2018. Joe Rondone/The Commercial Appeal,

Memphis first responders work the scene where a police chase lead to a series of accidents near the intersection of Mississippi Blvd and East McLemore Avenue on Friday, Sept. 28, 2018. Joe Rondone/The Commercial Appeal,

Memphis first responders work the scene where a police chase lead to a series of accidents near the intersection of Mississippi Blvd and East McLemore Avenue on Friday, Sept. 28, 2018. Joe Rondone/The Commercial Appeal,

Memphis first responders work the scene where a police chase lead to a series of accidents near the intersection of Mississippi Blvd and East McLemore Avenue on Friday, Sept. 28, 2018. Joe Rondone/The Commercial Appeal,

Memphis first responders work the scene where a police chase lead to a series of accidents near the intersection of Mississippi Blvd and East McLemore Avenue on Friday, Sept. 28, 2018. Joe Rondone/The Commercial Appeal,

Leftover police tape lays along the sidewalk of South Front Street where Phil Trenary, head of the Greater Memphis Chamber, was killed in a shooting on Thursday night. Joe Rondone/The Commercial Appeal

Mark Guyton, who has known Phil Trenary for years, visits the downtown location on South Front Street Friday morning where Trenary was killed in a shooting on Thursday night. Joe Rondone/The Commercial Appeal,

Trenary himself faced many of those same concerns after he was hired as chamber chief executive. His successor will face them too. Trenary had an advantage.

His prior role as Pinnacle Airlines CEO allowed him to join Memphis Tomorrow, where he mixed with FedEx founder Frederick Smith and AutoZone founder Pitt Hyde and met Drexel Chemical heir and chairwoman Leigh Shockey.

Memphis Tomorrow is the city's most elite band of civic-minded senior corporate executives. They are like the general thinking up missions (“Memphis needs more skilled workers”), while the scions like Williams, Wilson and Shockey are the troops in the chamber aiming at specific goals (create Harvard Tech, the moon mission to train 30,000 industrial workers).

Trenary had not only the support of the elites like Frederick Smith in Memphis Tomorrow, he had the backing of his son, Richard Smith, in the chamber.

At one point, some scions urged folding Memphis Tomorrow into the chamber. The discussion never went far, although the topic could surface for Trenary’s successor. Memphis Tomorrow is considered rich enough to alleviate the under-funded chamber’s concerns about money.

As part of its effort to become a social force in Memphis, the chamber let go of annual funding by Memphis and Shelby County governments. Figuring the chamber couldn’t take a contrary stand if it was funded by politicians, the scions through Trenary ramped up the chamber’s own Chairman’s Circle. It’s an action group of more than 100 chamber members who each pay an annual fee of $25,000 to be in the circle. The moon missions are a key focus for the Chairman’s Circle.

“Trenary came out of Memphis Tomorrow. I don’t see the separation between Memphis Tomorrow and the Chairman’s Circle like some people seem to think is there,” Williams said, noting an array of executives, including himself, belong to both organizations

Whether the groups should be merged, he said, is a discussion “above my pay grade, as I like to say” and not a pressing concern at the moment.

Finding a successor

Stunned by Trenary’s death, the chamber board wasn’t certain last week how it will proceed.

“I don’t know whether we need a national search’’ for a chamber CEO, Williams said. “We’ll let the board decide. We know we need to find the best person.”

A recruiting plus is Memphis' ascension, including 55,000 new jobs since 2014, and a spirit of cooperation in the city.

"Anyone who comes in is going to realize they're riding the snowball down the hill" in an easier ride compared to 2014, Williams said. "They'll understand there's this big group of people in Memphis (including the Chairman's Circle and Memphis Tomorrow) who want to work together. That’s never happened here before."